The Sunflowers and the Larks
by Lothanoriel
Summary: Frodo tells little Elanor about the sunflowers and the larks...


This is a story a very good friend wrote for me. She does not have an account at ff.net, so I post it here because I think it's too good to not be read by anyone else but me. 

Thank you for this wonderful story, Thorontiniel!

**Disclaimer:** Middle-earth and all its characters belong to Tolkien.

The sunflowers and the larks 

In the early morning Frodo sat in the garden watching little Elanor playing with her ball. The little one threw her ball near one of the bigger flowers when a lark started greeting the sun. Suddenly one of the flowers opened her blossom, and the lark flew down from the tree, and continued singing, but she sang towards the flower who turned her blossom to the lark. 

Elanor watched this surprised and then asked Frodo why this happened. Frodo smiled at the younger hobbit and asked back if her mother Rosie never had told her about the sunflowers and the larks. Elanor denied this and stared at the flower and the lark. Then she turned towards Frodo, opened her big blue eyes widely, and begged Frodo to tell her the story. Frodo laughed at the sight of that cute little girl, and started to begin the tale. 

"Bilbo told me this story, he was a better storyteller than me, so I beg you to forgive me if I can't tell it very interesting. But now I'll tell you the tale.

On a wide green meadow, there grew all kind of flowers, but near the forest no flower wanted to live because of the continuing tweeting of the birds. When new flowers arrived on the meadow, they had to move nearer to the forest until one day they nearly reached it. That day, the sunflowers turned up, and begged to stay there. They were shown the place next to the forest, in the shadow of the wild trees. The sunflowers weren't too glad about that, because they adored the sun, and needed her to become big flowers. But because they also needed a place to live, they accepted to settle there. 

The first morning after their arrival, they heard a really racking noise. The larks got out of their nests and greeted the early morning. Now in those days, the larks didn't have pretty voices, they sounded more like ravens or crows. The whole folk of the sunflowers awakened, even the little ones. The larks laughed at the sunflowers who looked sheepishly at them, and couldn't get the sleep out of their eyes. Then they started to fly in and out of their nests over the flowers. The flowers couldn't get any rest, and so they decided on their very first day on the meadow that they would fight the larks. 

So it was said, but they didn't know what to do. One of the flowers had the idea to ask the trees, on which the larks' nests were, to turn around so the larks wouldn't be as loud as in that moment. In the evening the bravest flower went to the trees and asked them to turn around. The trees looked at the little flower and started to laugh, sending the flower back to her folk. Once again they held a council and decided to try it with some grass in the ears. All flowers got some grass, put it in their ears and fell asleep, hoping not to hear the larks in the morning. But the larks had watched them and decided to annoy the flowers so they would leave. The larks themselves also didn't want any neighbours, that was why the birds' racket never ceased. 

So in the next morning, the larks flew down from the trees and sang between the sunflowers, who awakened immediately although they had all put grass into their ears. Now flowers aren't as dumb as we may think. In their council, they exchanged once again ideas, and one of them was to put spider's webs around the trees so the larks couldn't fly down to the flowers the following morning. So it was done, the spiders who liked webbing their webs, never minded where to web it and put a very thick web around the trees. 

The next morning, the larks flew out of their nests, and flew directly into the webs. Struggling against the thick threads, some of them nearly strangled themselves. The flowers didn't awaken and so they didn't see the struggle of the larks, but when they awakened yawning in the early afternoon they felt strange: the larks had put some oily water on their roots in revenge of the spiders' webs. One or two of the flowers grew seriously sick, and the flowers decided not to try things like webs once again, but to make life much harder for the larks. 

One night they hid all the birds' food they could get hold off. In the early morning, the larks tried to find something to eat, but had to fly a very long distance to get something for their hungry children and for themselves. In return the larks took some of the earth around the flowers away so they didn't have enough soil and had to get some new one. It was a wide way to get new soil for the flowers and they returned angry once again.

On one of the following days the larks awakened by an awful yelling under the trees. The sunflowers had established a chorus and tried to sing some songs during dawn. The larks tried to ignore it, but there wasn't any possibility not to hear the flowers except flying away. So the larks all left their nests except those who had little ones inside them. After some time the flowers grinned at each other and stopped singing, falling asleep almost immediately after ceasing making noise. The larks returned during the afternoon, carrying a strange smelling liquid in something like a spider's web. Over the flowers, they turned the web around and the liquid rained down on the flowers. Now stinking and being very angry, the sunflowers called in another council. There they made the decision to send one of them down to the river and get some water to clean themselves. During their talk, the sky turned grey and it started to rain, so the decision wasn't necessary anymore. The larks returned now all to their nests, no more chatting and racketing was in the air, they all ducked under the trees and hoped the bad weather would pass. The flowers also weren't to glad about the heavy rain. They didn't have full sunlight for some days and their little ones didn't grow any more. So the rain turned their situation even worse  although it washed the stinking liquid from them. Leaves and blossom wet, the little ones started to cough

One of the larks saw the small sun flowers cough and because they coughed so heavily. he decided to talk to the elders, and to suggest making peace with the flowers, and if it was only for a while. So it was done, and the larks sent one of them to the sunflowers who agreed at once. 

So it became summer but the flowers didn't get any more sunshine than in the first days they settled on the meadow. They approached the trees one more time and pleaded at them to move only a little bit so they could get at least some rays of sunlight. The trees didn't want to listen to them but when the larks started to threaten the trees, the trees gave in. 

How the larks threatened the trees? Oh that was easy. The trees lived of the dung of the birds and without that, they wouldn't grow that good and they needed to move somewhere  where the soil was better than in the forest. So the trees moved a little bit and the sunflowers got a little bit sunlight. They started to grow and their blossoms grew so fast that they were about three times as big as the ones of all the other flowers on the meadow. Their yellow blossoms pleased the larks and so they ceased to sing to early in the morning. 

And it became autumn, and it became winter. The sunflowers lost their petals, but kept at least some part of the blossom. It turned to a brown colour and didn't look nice any more. But the flowers and the larks had become some kind of friends, or better not-enemies. The winter was very hard, and the flowers slept to get over it. But one day the larks didn't find any more food for their pack. Several days they came back hungry to the trees and one day, one of the younger larks started to complain about the winter and the lacking food. He envied the sunflowers who seemed to be asleep. But by this words the flowers awakened, and discussed how to help the larks. One of the flowers shook her head, and at this moment she lost some of the seeds sitting in her blossom. A younger lark came around and picked them up, not having seen where they came from. He opened his eyes wide and called the other ones. Food! Food! The sunflowers immediately began to shake their heads and loads of seed fell down on earth. All larks started to eat, and liked what they ate. That's how they came over the hard winter. In spring, when the first ray of sunlight strayed over the blossoms of a sunflower, and the larks began to sing, they became friends. Together they went on the search for a better place for the flowers to grow, but nevertheless with trees or hedges near it, so the larks could nest there as well. They went a long time until they reached the garden of some Elves, where they settled down. On the very first morning in the garden, the larks began to sing, and the sun flowers opened their blossoms as soon as they heard the larks' singing. The flowers and the larks maintain this behaviour until today, and they will keep on with it until the world will change. And from that garden they were spread all over the country. So they came here, I got the seeds from Elrond's Garden, and where anyone take a seed of a sunflower, some larks will follow."

Frodo finished the tale. Elanor watched the lark who now flew away and sighed. "I want to be a sunflower. Will ever anyone be my lark?" Frodo looked at the girl in surprise, then smiled and said to himself "Yes Elanor, they will be. Lots of them will be. I'm sorry I won't see that anymore."


End file.
